Ukraine Down Again/Robots Lost/Attribution for the Future

Russia takes down more of the Ukraine. "IT systems at Kiev's main airport were floored over the weekend, sparking a renewed warning from Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) about further BlackEnergy malware-based attacks." Apparently, Ukraine is now a free-fire zone for Russian hackers. Watch out.

China Steals America's Robot Plans. "U.S. authorities are looking into the possibility that China hacked into a defense contractor for the Pentagon in order to steal secret robot plans. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has already launched an investigation into the incident, ordering security analysts to produce an unclassified report detailing China's current android arsenal and where these technologies came from." The attacks come from 2007-09, so they pre-date the Obama-Xi agreement last year.

A new model for attributing cyber attacks (from Thomas Rid and Ben Buchanan). "Matching an offender to an offence is an exercise in minimising uncertainty on three levels: tactically, attribution is an art as well as a science; operationally, attribution is a nuanced process not a black and white problem; and strategically, attribution is a function of what is at stake politically."

Paul Rosenzweig is the founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC, a homeland security consulting company and a Senior Fellow at the R Street Institute. He is also a Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Mr. Rosenzweig formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security. He is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University and an Adjunct Lecturer at Northwestern University.